Stop Avoiding Your Numbers: The Leadership Habit That Builds Financial Confidence

Welcome to Profit Points! I'm your host, Megan Schwan, founder of Sidekick Accounting, Certified Profit First Professional, Fix This Next Advisor, and your accounting sidekick. As a business owner myself, I know how easy it is to avoid looking at your financial reports when the numbers feel overwhelming or emotionally charged. That's why each week on Profit Points, I break down one financial concept using practical examples and simple explanations to help you understand your numbers, improve profitability, and build a business that works for your life.

In this episode, we're talking about one of the most important leadership habits every successful CEO develops: intentional awareness. Many business owners think avoiding their numbers protects them from stress, but in reality, avoidance only delays clarity and makes financial decisions more difficult. I'll show you how to remove emotion from your financial reports, use your numbers as neutral information instead of personal judgment, and develop a simple weekly habit that leads to calmer, more confident decision-making.

This episode answers questions like:

• Why do so many business owners avoid looking at their financial numbers?
• What's the difference between financial awareness and financial judgment?
• How does avoiding your numbers affect business growth?
• Why is confidence built through awareness instead of avoidance?
• How can business owners make better financial decisions without feeling overwhelmed?
• What financial reports should you review regularly?
• How often should you check your business numbers?
• What questions should CEOs ask during a financial review?
• How can a simple weekly money check-in improve profitability?
• Why is awareness the first step toward confident leadership?

This episode is for small business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants, freelancers, coaches, and leaders who know they should be reviewing their financial reports but often put it off. If you've ever avoided opening your profit and loss statement, relied only on your bank balance, or felt anxious every time you looked at your numbers, this episode will help you replace fear with clarity and build healthier financial habits.

If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe to Profit Points so you never miss an episode. And if you know another business owner who's been avoiding their numbers because they feel overwhelming, share this episode with them.

This Week's Action Step

Schedule a recurring 10-minute financial check-in with yourself this week and commit to observing your numbers without judgment.

During your check-in:

• Compare your cash balance to the previous few months.
• Review your income versus expenses.
• Track one profitability metric that's important to your business.
• Ask yourself: What do I notice? What's improving? What needs attention?

Don't focus on solving every problem immediately. Your goal is simply to build awareness, because awareness always comes before action.

Resources Mentioned

• Intentional Awareness Financial Check-In
• Sidekick Accounting Facebook Community
• Free Business Consultation
• Profit First Methodology
• Sidekick Accounting Resources

Connect with Megan

LinkedIn: Megan Schwan

Website & Community: youraccountingsidekick.com

Book a Free Consultation: chatwithmeg.com

Connect with me for practical financial education, resources, and support designed to help you build a profitable, sustainable business that works for your life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, glad you're here. This is Profit Points, and I'm Megan Schwant, your accounting sidekick and certified Profit First Professional and Fix the Snex Advisor. If you're a small business owner who wants to actually understand what is happening in your business financially, not just survive it, but genuinely get it, you're in the right place. Every episode covers one concept, uses real numbers, and ends with something you can actually do. That's the deal. Let's talk about today's topic. I'm so excited for our conversation today because this is a topic that I come across all the time when I work with business owners and their money. In fact, almost every business owner struggles with this, but rarely says it out loud. What do they struggle with? Looking at their numbers. Not because they don't care, not because they're irresponsible, but because numbers carry emotion and negative emotions we tend to shy away from, right? Today's episode is about a skill every strong CEO develops: intentional awareness. And I'm Megan Schwan, your accounting sidekick. This is the Profit Points Podcast where we build calm, confident leadership through better money decisions. Most people think the opposite of confidence is ignorance, but it's not. The opposite of confidence is avoidance. Avoidance looks like not opening your reports, only checking your bank balance and not having profit first implemented. Waiting until someone tells you how bad it is. Maybe like your accountant at this time of year. Avoiding numbers unless there's a problem. That's how avoidance shows up. And avoidance doesn't protect you, it delays your clarity. So, that being said, today we are going to talk about intentional awareness. Intentional awareness is not obsessing over your numbers, it's not micromanaging every dollar, it's choosing to look regularly and without judgment. The key distinction here is that awareness says, this is information, and judgment says this means I'm failing. Does that resonate? You see the shift? When you remove judgment, the numbers become neutral data instead of emotional triggers. And that's when leadership gets easier. Most financial stress isn't caused by bad numbers per se, it's caused by the story that we attach to them. Judgment sounds something like I should be further along by now. I messed this up. I'm bad with money. I can't tell you how much I hear that one. Other people have this figured out, and I don't. But numbers can't really judge you, they reflect your decisions, and decisions can change. When we as CEOs learn to observe instead of react, guess what? Your confidence is going to grow. This happened with one of my clients. He is making a huge pivot or has been in the process of making a huge pivot. He's changing from one industry to another. His primary business has been successful, but the times that we're in and demands are changing. And what once lit him up isn't doing it anymore. So he started a new business and he's winding down the other. One is funding the other, which is pretty common when you have multiple businesses, especially in the startup phases, right? And instead of getting a loan, he's self-funding, which is awesome. But he needs to still watch his numbers. The past couple of months, his data was telling him that if he didn't start making some big cuts, his run rate was gonna burn through his cash really quickly, too quickly. He looked at this data, and instead of making a judgment, instead of internalizing it, he made some tough but necessary changes. And this definitely, the story is definitely an extreme instance of this. Most of the time, we're not cutting tons of things or positions like he did, with uh, but he did it with confidence, is what I'm trying to get at here. But this is an extreme instance of putting it into practice. But it's really a good example of how you can put your data to work, how putting data to work and removing that emotion helps make those decisions a little bit easier. He was able to make those decisions because he was going off of the data of what his business and his profit needed. And you can do the same for your business, but in even smaller ways. The point is that the numbers don't judge. So, how exactly does this intentional awareness change leadership? When you practice intentional leadership, your decisions will start to feel less emotional. I like to always reference this when I'm making decisions. It's for the good of the company, right? This is what the company needs. When you start making it another entity and using that data for the benefit of the company, then it becomes a little bit less tied down to that emotion, right? You stop guessing is another way. You lead proactively instead of reactively, and you stop fearing what you might see, right? I know some business owners, some of even some of my clients have told me that they don't look at the reports all the time because they don't like numbers or they don't want to know what's there, right? But that's not that's not an effective way to leadership. So you can begin making a shift by asking some questions like, what's actually happening? What do I want to adjust? What's one small improvement that I can make? This is how calm and strategic CEOs are built. They ask these questions. So putting it into practice right now, it doesn't require fancy dashboards or hours of your time. I think sometimes that's the other delay or challenge is that we feel like we have to have this big, huge presentation when really you can just start really simple. And I'm gonna tell you exactly how. So, one, you want to choose a regular check-in. Make it weekly or bi-weekly, but try to have it at the same time and same day. Put it in your calendar, make it a recurring appointment with yourself, and then take a look at three things. Look at your cash balance compared to the last couple of months. This is gonna show you whether it's stable or if it's always going up and down. Income versus expenses is another good one to look at. And then you wanna take and track one profit-related metric. So maybe that's your profit margin, maybe it's your operating expense ratio, maybe it's caps versus caps, which in the profit world world is your current allocation percentages compared to your target allocation percentages. And you can do that by working with me on profit first, getting into business. And then number the third step is to ask some neutral questions. What do I notice? What's improving? What needs attention? No panic, no spiraling, just awareness. So the weekly, this week's action step, this week's profit point is simple. And the action step is to do you want to hear it? Look at my guest in the back. First, schedule that 10-minute money check-in with yourself and promise yourself you will observe and not judge. You will take in, absorb and not rush to reaction. And then I want you to write down just one insight, not a solution, but the insight because awareness comes before action every single time. Intentional awareness is how you stop fearing your numbers and start leading with confidence. You don't need to be perfect with money, you just need to stay present with it. And so, if this aligned and you need some additional support, I've created a simple intentional awareness check-in that you can use on your weekly appointment with yourself. Just comment awareness and I'll send it to you. No forms needed. I know it's uh there's always like the forms that you gotta fill out. I don't have one of those. Just let me know that you want it and I will send it to you. And if you want further support, building a simple rhythm around your numbers, that's exactly what we do at Sidekick. So book a complimentary call with me at chatwithmeg.com or shoot me a message on LinkedIn or Facebook. And this is the Profit Points Podcast. I'm Megan Schwann, your accounting sidekick, helping you turn awareness into clarity and clarity into confident leadership. And I will see you next week. Bye. All right, that's your episode this time. Don't forget your action step. I want you to actually do it, not just add it to the list. If this episode was helpful, share it with a fellow business owner who needs to hear it. And if you're ready to go deeper on your specific numbers, book a strategy call with Sidekick Accounting. Go to chatwithmeg.com, and I'll see you next time on Profit Points.